


math won't fix everything

by clovekentwell



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jason is a Dork, Nico di Angelo & Jason Grace Friendship, Platonic Relationships, all my homies hate hoh jason, and hes in character, au where the seven are nice to nico, can u tell i cant name one shots, fuck hoh jason, gays cant math, not jasico, please god not jasico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26989411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clovekentwell/pseuds/clovekentwell
Summary: jason teaches nico maths because he's a sweet nerd and actually in character
Relationships: Nico di Angelo & Jason Grace
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	math won't fix everything

Jason walked softly up to the foremast, but not too softly that he would scare Nico upon speaking.

"Nico. Hey."

_Nico di Angelo._

Over the past few days, Jason had bottled up his useless empathy to the point where the idea just _came_ to him. He felt he needed to do something and finally knew what. Of course, there was nothing he could truly do to take away the pain Nico had been through. The son of Hades had been stuck in a jar with no food, no air, and before that he had been in Tartarus. Jason had a feeling there was even more this boy had been through, maybe something he could relate to, something not on the surface... but that wasn't what he was here for. Not exactly.

He looked up at Nico, sitting on that wooden arm, his eyes sunken with dark circles. His legs swung almost... lifelessly. Almost. And Jason would have a hard time sleeping at night if he didn't try and help him. No one lives like that, sleepless, saddened, emaciated, _hopeless_ , without a reason behind it all. No one should have to go through what Nico did, Jason knew that from just the surface. And so he came up with something that might help him to take his mind off things, or just annoy the hell out of Nico.

Who knows? Jason just knows is he's probably about to sound like the biggest nerd on board.

Nico's eyes narrowed, but he didn't look exactly angry. "What," his voice was bitter, horse

 _Expected._ Jason reminded himself, readjusting his grip on the books he was holding behind his back.

He took a deep breath. "I know things have been hard for you." A look passed Nico's face that told Jason he didn't want the sympathy he had to offer. Jason could see why. "I mean... I don't know how bad exactly, but it's been hell, at least." Nico stared at the afternoon horizon far in the distance. "So..." he said, trying not to smile because it didn't feel so appropriate, "I thought I could distract you from things! Maybe! For a bit." He held his math textbook out in front of him, the one he had used when he was about Nico's age. The sight of it filled Jason with a bittersweet nostalgia. _Nerd,_ he muttered to himself. 

When he was done with legion training for the day, Jason would go to the library in New Rome with the book and try to learn everything he could from it's off-white pages. Jason never had a normal school experience, and he knew Nico didn't either. But whenever Jason needed to take his mind off things... get away from being _Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter_ for awhile... he had math, however bad at it he might be. If Nico agreed, however, Jason prayed he wouldn't mind his lack of mathematical skill. 

Jason hoped he would agree. Math wasn't gods, quests, duty or death. Math was real. And Jason needed real. We all did.

If Nico wasn't confused before, he was now. His mouth open and closed a few times like a malfunctioning nutcracker. "Where... did you get that?"

Jason pursed his lips. "I stole it... from the New Rome library. I mean, it was practically mine. I used it every day for like, a solid year and a half." He glanced at Nico's face. He wasn't laughing, you couldn't call it smiling, but he was amused.

"Wow, Golden Boy, that must've really flexed your morals, huh?"

"Okay, yeah," Jason admitted, "but do you see? That's the whole point of maths. You don't have to think about your dad that runs the sky, or your..." _You're not here to pour your heart out. Just to stop this kid from thinking about deathdeathdeathdeathdeath every second and teach him what inequalities are._ "...your _other,_ plentiful, numerous troubles. You just get to do math." Nico blinked once. Twice. "You know?"

Nico's expression softened ever so slightly. "Yeah. Okay." He cocked his eyebrow. "But you're still not teaching me math-"

Jason flew himself up to where Nico was perched and opened the textbook.

"Lesson 1.1!" He cried. "Pre-Algebra equations-"

" _Jason_ -"

" _Nico_."

"I hate you."

Nico gave up protesting after Jason started practically yelling each word over him. He didn't know how loud the praetor could be when he wanted to.

And then the math itself, _Jason teaching_ _Nico._ Jason certainly wasn't one to judge, but he hadn't known Nico had stopped going to school when he was _ten._ Not even schooling himself along the way.

"You're doing it wrong," Nico scowled at him.

"Nico, I think I would know the order of operations-"

"Give me the pencil." Nico said, then proceeded to snatch it out of Jason's hand. "Look. _36 - 7 x 3._ Thirty-six minus seven is..." Nico hesitated and stared at the sky. "Twenty nine. Yes, and then that times three is Zeus knows what-"

"Nico, I told you, that's wrong."

"How?"

"It's order of operations. PEMDAS."

"What the fuck is a PEMDAS, Jason?"

"Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction."

Nico blinked like those words didn't compute. "What's an exponents?"

"Exponents are like... the little numbers in the corners of other numbers. It means you multiply the big number, the coefficient, by itself however many times the number is in the top corner." Jason looked at Nico, who didn't seem any less puzzled than before. "I didn't explain that very well, did I?" 

"You tried," Nico shrugged which made Jason chuckle. Nico struggled his way through the first lesson, Jason helping him in a way that was less than a teacher, but that of a big sibling. It filled his lungs with a heavy feeling that made it more relaxing to exhale. Nico missed it, not having to be on his own all the time. _Gods, he really did._

His face turned serious as he looked at Jason. "Thanks," he admitted quietly. This... is good. Distracts from all the..." He put down the pencil and motioned his hands at his head in which Jason could only interpret as _Distracts from all the batshit going on up here._

 _Amen,_ Jason thought.

"Do you..." Jason spoke equally as quiet, "I dunno... _want_ to talk about the jar-thing? Tartarus? Anything else?" Nico got that far away look in his eyes again. Jason swallowed hard. Math wasn't going to fix everything, after all. "Only if you want to," Jason put his hands out in defense.

His heart beat a little too fast. Was he just making this worse? Oh god.

"This is fine," Nico said finally, his voice clear and certain, but not aggressive. "This is good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was a comfortable near-silence with the pencil scratching against paper being the only sound. More comfortable than things had been lately, at least. For the both of them.

Jason was right; amidst the chaos, everyone needed something real, even if it was simple as math.

Math wasn't going to fix everything. But it was real.

"Okay, are you gonna sit there or are you gonna show me how to solve this?"


End file.
